


Scent

by mystiri1



Series: Senses [2]
Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: Character Study, M/M, POV First Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-09
Updated: 2011-04-09
Packaged: 2017-10-17 19:34:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/180430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mystiri1/pseuds/mystiri1
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Duo wakes to the scent of Heero.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Scent

It’s the scent of gun oil that wakes me.

As the slightly sharp, metallic smell seeps into my consciousness, I realise I’ve been hearing small sounds for awhile. Not the familiar background hum of a working spaceship, but the sounds of movement nearby.

Once I never would have slept through any such sound, however small and inconspicuous. It would have been too dangerous, a sign that someone – a potential threat – was too close. But the scent of gun oil is a comforting one, and it speaks to me of safety.

An odd reaction to something used to clean and maintain weapons, but the scent of gun oil also means something else, too.

Heero.

I smile into the pillow. Heero is cleaning his gun.

That’s how I know it’s safe. Not only is Heero there, the source of movement and so potentially deadly to any and all threats, he only cleans his gun when he is certain everything is secure. I don’t mean to imply that he doesn’t do it often, or anything, but it means that for now, he isn’t expecting attacks or interruptions.

I also know that, in spite of the fact he can reassemble his weapon so fast you’d swear it flew together by itself, his ‘spare’ will be sitting on the table beside him, just in case.

I think I read somewhere, or maybe it was one of those random documentaries you get on TV, that scent is one of the most powerful triggers to memory. A single smell can trigger physical and emotional responses on a level below that of conscious thought, the body remembering what even the mind cannot. It’s not logical, because you may not even be aware of it. It’s something instinctual, something that reminds us humans are animals too.

It’s certainly true that the smell of certain types of smoke can send me back in my own head, to a time and place where I’m looking at the rubble of a ruined church, still smouldering in the aftermath of an attack. So that once again, part of me is a small, desperate child wondering why: why did it happen, why was I too late, why didn’t I die, too? Only certain types of smoke, but it's a scent that I encounter a lot on the battlefield. There’s no smell quite like a burning building: a mixture of wood, metal, scorched concrete and melted synthetics, and if you’re unlucky, a sickly sweet smell that doesn’t bear too much thinking about. Fortunately for the sake of my missions, that small child is just one part of my messed up little psyche, and that smell is enough to spur Shinigami on to greater heights of destruction. I’d like to think my inner child is made happier by large doses of enemy ass-kicking. It certainly does wonders for the rest of me.

Gun oil is just one of the scents of Heero, though. Gun oil and gunpowder and sweat, the petroleum jelly we use to lubricate certain parts on our Gundams (also useful for other things in a pinch, too, if you were wondering) and blood.

Gunpowder because of how we met, of course. It’s silly, because I’d certainly fired a gun before then. Many times, in training. Meeting Heero was the first time I ever shot someone, though, all up close and personal. And it was harder than I thought.

Sure, at the time I thought I was doing the right thing. He was pointing a gun at a girl – an unarmed one, at that, and I was rescuing said damsel in distress. Only Relena didn’t have the sense to be distressed, and there was something about the look in Heero’s eyes...

Maybe I was willing to risk my life to kick Alliance butt, but I figured if it happened, I was taking a bunch of them with me. Heero seemed willing to sacrifice his all too easily for much less.

It’s a look I haven’t seen recently.

It bothered me. Even before I figured out that, oh shit, I’d just shot another Gundam pilot, and dammit, why didn’t G _warn_ me (I was never really sure what I thought G should have warned me about, just that it was somehow all that crazy old man’s fault), it bothered me how willing he was to die. My life has sucked, in some very major ways. I came close to dying numerous times, and wondered more than once why I survived. But I did survive, and part of me clung very stubbornly to that fact, even when I hated it.

I’m Duo Maxwell, and I’m a survivor.

I wasn’t terribly surprised when he finally pushed that self-destruct button.

Thinking about that always manages to depress me. Looking back, I can’t have been easy for Quatre to deal with, especially as he has that whole empathic thing going. But that seems so very far away right now. The flat metallic taste of cool, recycled air is a far cry from the hot winds of the desert.

And I can still smell the oil Heero is cleaning his gun with.

There are other scents, a lot closer. The smell of sweat and sex. And just the faintest hint of gunpowder, which seems to linger about Heero no matter how many times he showers.

I inhale surreptitiously, knowing Heero pays attention to any sound and not wanting to get up just yet. Lying in bed, doing nothing – just being lazy - is not really a concept he understands.

He has changed a lot since that first meeting, though. The fact that we’re lovers, for one. I remember how many times, how very firmly he pushed me away, and I’m still not sure quite where it changed. Because it had to be before we ended up in bed together; Heero is not one for that kind of impulse. If it could affect the mission, then proper consideration is needed.

It did affect the mission, and I’m glad of it. I like the idea that my lover would hesitate to press the self-destruct button again without a damned good reason first. If only because Shinigami would hunt him down in the afterlife and kick his sorry dead ass.

Which isn’t to say the next battle might not kill us, anyway.

There’s another scent on the pillow – the apple smell of the conditioner I use on my hair. I’m not fussy about such things, as conditioner of whatever brand is a necessity when your hair is as long as mine, but I like this one now that I’ve tasted what a real, fresh apple is like. Funny, that’s another Heero-memory, too.

I’d been bitching about the fact that I was bored, and hungry, and out of junk food. Heero tossed me an apple to shut me up. It was a glossy mixture of red and green, firm and not at all withered. I can still remember that first bite: crisp, and sweet and juicy. It was completely unlike anything I’d had before: the few times I got the fruit on a colony, they’d been old, floury and rather tasteless. I was used to cafeteria slop and junk food, the latter more because it was portable and kept well than because I had any great liking for it.

I devoured the apple, and looked up to find Heero watching me, with an intent expression in his eyes I couldn’t decipher. He immediately went back to work on his laptop, and it was only later that I realised Heero didn’t carry snacks. Not even of the fresh and healthy variety.

We’ve both changed so much since that first meeting. I don’t feel like I have to pretend, around Heero: he takes whatever mood I’m in with the same watchful attention. It’s not so much acceptance as I think it is that I don’t make that much sense to him anyway. I wonder if a part of him is still trying to logically figure out my actions and motivations. If so, good luck to him, and he can feel free to share the results with me.

And Heero – he acts like he has a purpose, now, not just a mission. A strange distinction, maybe, but one that makes me think he intends to survive all this, and that’s fine with me. Not too long ago I accused him of being crazy, but in reality, he seems saner than ever. There’s something about him that’s no longer just determined but somehow... calm. As if he’s made peace with whatever demons lurk inside him. There’s something curiously attractive about that, something that makes me want it for myself. For the first time in a very long time, I find myself wondering about more than the immediate future. I’m a survivor, true, but there’s more to living than just that.

Has Heero thought about it? What he’ll do after the war? Everybody’s been talking the last few days how this is it, it’s nearly over. I know that whatever I do, I want to keep the one good thing that has happened to me in this war, even if it’s only as a memory.

I inhale again, a deep breath that is more of a sigh. The sound of movement stops, and I open my eyes to find Heero has turned in his seat, and is watching me.

“It’s 5:18 am,” he says, watching me with that same intent look I still can’t decipher. I like it, though. “If you want to get your hair washed and dried before we head down to the hangar bays, you’ll need to shower now.”

I sit up and stretch, feeling his eyes still on me. So maybe I arched my back a little more than necessary, and held it for a few extra moments. When I lower my arms, I look at where his guns sit, fully assembled on the table. “You’re finished?”

He nods.

“Then maybe you could give me a hand,” I say, swinging my legs over the side of the bed and flicking the sheet back. I rummage around in the bare little footlocker that’s serving for personal storage, and tug out a towel, some soap, and the shampoo and conditioner. “It’ll go faster, that way.”

Okay, from the look he’s giving me, Heero has definitely figured out my motivations on that one. But he nods, and follows me into the tiny bathroom.

We’ll be fighting soon enough. But for now, I get to enjoy the smells of gun oil and apple-scented conditioner.


End file.
